The Inner Scientist

In this episode Dr. Irving Weissman discusses his long-term interests in the immune system, including his early medical education and research training. He details his group's work on leukemia viruses and the discovery of the first mammalian hematopoietic stem cells. Irv also discusses efforts to commercialize these laboratory findings to benefit patients with cancer, including the formation of biotech companies to fractionate circulating cancer cells from blood as well as therapeutically target the "don't eat me" signal CD47. He also discusses views about peer review and NIH priorities for funding.

In this episode Dr. Randy Schekman discusses his group's discovery of pathways involved in vesicle trafficking and secretion using genetic and biochemical screens in yeast. He also discusses how these discoveries in budding yeast converged with biochemical data on vesicle trafficking in mammalian cells. These various findings led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013. Enjoy.

In this episode Dr. Bert O'Malley from Baylor College of Medicine discusses his group's purification of the progesterone receptor as the first nuclear hormone receptor, the discovery that hormone receptors function in the nucleus to regulate gene expression, and that various co-activators are necessary for gene regulatory functions. He also provides valuable advice for career advancement in biomedical research. Enjoy.

In this episode Dr. Phil Sharp from MIT discusses his group's discovery of split genes and RNA splicing in the late 1970's, which led to his Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1993. He also discusses other aspects of the RNA molecular biology field as well as his contributions as a co-founder of Biogen, one of the first biotech start-ups.

In this episode Dr. Tony Hunter discusses his discovery of the Src protein as the first known tyrosine kinase. He discusses his early interests in polyoma virus and details the experiments that led to the finding of phospho-tyrosines in Middle T Antigen using pull-down assays. Tony also talks about other research discoveries in his lab, including the cloning of the first cyclins. Enjoy.

Dr. Hal Dvorak discusses his early career transition from cellular immunology to cancer biology, and how his group made the discovery of vascular permeability factor (VPF) protein, also known as VEGF-A. Hal discusses specific angiogenic effects VPF/VEGF has on vascular endothelial cells and explains why targeting this pathway in cancer has not proven as beneficial as initially anticipated.

Dr. Jim Allison discusses his early research on T cell activation and how this led to the discovery of CTLA-4 as the first immune checkpoint component. He also discusses strategies to target CTLA-4 in cancer and how this has revolutionized the field of immunotherapy.

In this episode Dr. David Baltimore discusses the discovery of the first reverse transcriptase in 1970, which led to his Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1975. He also talks about transitioning his lab's research on animal viruses to cancer biology and immunology, with major discoveries in each area. Important career guidance to young researchers is also provided.

Dr. Tom Pollard discussing his research on the cytoskeleton, cell motility and the discovery of the Arp2/3 protein complex.

Joe McCarty discusses the details about the discovery of the alphavbeta8 integrin-TGFbeta signaling axis in brain vascular development and how this pathway is altered in malignant brain cancers.